WOD-tastic Friday

And a slacker blog day. No photos. No treats. I got nothin for ya today! And I apologize. I figure these things happen so long as I don’t let them happen often, right? Who’s with me on this? Hahaha.

We did go to Outback for dinner. Which is our GO-TO restaurant as of late. If only we had a place that served grass fed steaks! That’s close and not some schamncy fancy place.

We get home, I’m tired and I need to catch up on American Horror Story. Lame excuse I know but I knew I had an early morning and I didn’t want to be up all night. If I haven’t already told you, I get my WODs in at 5 am. M/W/F so it’s early and TV prevailed :/

So let me get to the Boom Box report. We worked on 5RM of Overhead Squat (OHS). This movement/lift takes a lot of flexibility that I still need to build but I’m getting there. Little did I know that today it would feel like my wrists were on FIRE and I had a hard time moving up in weight 😦 Overall I think I could handle the weight but the darn inside of my right wrist was just not having it. So I maxed out only at 60 lbs. I was real sad about that but you have to move on and work on wrist/forearm mobility. I guess.

The MetCon was:

METCON
Team WOD
7 rounds
5 Muscle ups OR 5 chest to bar pullups & 5 bench dips
8 Plyo Push-ups
11 Plyo Air-squats

It was guys vs gals this morning. Melanie and I did pretty good today. It helps that you can have someone finish out the reps for you and we got through our 7 rounds in a little over 8 minutes …. I THINK! I can’t recall. Granted we didn’t do Muscle UPS but we still pushed and worked hard. So Kudos to us 🙂

And that’s all I’ve got folks… This weekend will be one of rest and getting to those treats I’ve been needing to make. Good Luck to our Boom Box Coach at the All Cities Open tomorrow. We’ll be there cheering him on for sure! It’s a beast of a competition so that is why I am not participating. I’m just not a firebreather yet.. hahahah 3 1/2 months in… still a beginner 🙂

Oh and my kid note for the day: I was trying out one of our NEW lara bars, Chocolate Cherry Torte or something like that and it was YUMMO probably cause the chocolate chips had some sugar, ha, ah well. So I expressed that it was tasty and my 12 yr old (Jonas) says “can I have a little of it?” My immediate response was NO sir! And he was all poor poor petri and I said maybe if you’re good Santa will leave some in your stocking… OH that’s right you don’t believe in Santa anymore do you son?” And to his credit he’s become a little more quick witted and responded with “I BELIEVE IN PALEO SANTA!” Are you kidding me! It made me laugh, he will leave him almond milk and a walnut date bar. And straight up carrots for the reindeer! Good times, Good times indeed! Happy Friday people!!!

Whining, Excuses and Spending Money

No workout this morning, ugh… Why you ask? Well I’m just a lazy whiny baby. Last night as I was trying to rush around, I burned my poor little ol fingers with hot oil 😦 I know you you’re all taken aback, ha! I was fryin’ up some sweet potato fries and I accidentally dropped a few as I was trying to nicely place them in the pan and SPLISH SPLASH BURN! And dang did it hurt! I felt like poo the rest of the evening. And this morning when I woke up and my fingers still hurt. I thought to myself … there’s no way I’m going to put on boxing gloves to box it up or do much with my hands still ON FIRE! So I reset my alarm and went back to sleep! When I awoke I realized there some blistering going on and figured I should suck it up and quit crying about it. But I still had to vent here, so thanks for still reading!

Finished dinner .. my apologies for the poorly shot picture :/

Now dinner was easy and simple for the most part. Ernie grilled up some grass fed steak for us. I steamed up some broccoli, fried up some sweet potato fries (I know I should have baked them but they are so much better tasting this way), and baked some kale chips. This was my first attempt at kale chips and my first batch burned cause I’m a forgetful person so it was an instant fail, but my 2nd batch came out quite nice. The kids enjoyed them which surprised me and Ernie said they “tasted green” and gobbled them up. But then he had to wash it down with some “orange” (sweet potato fries). Yes we are an odd bunch but we typically have a good ol’ time. Lots of jokes, rockin out and being silly.

Kale "chips" Ready For The Oven

Sweet Potato Ready To Be Cooked

Yummy Honey Drizzled Sweet Potato Fries

So although I’m still in pain from the burns, I had a mission. MISSION: PALEO LEMON BARS! I had printed out the recipe and I was determined to get out and buy the ingredients we were lacking. So off we went. I need lemons, more honey and unsweetened shredded coconut! Easy enough right? I’m thinking $10, no big deal. Well with Ernie and me out and about shopping I should know better by now.

Next to the lemons was a citrus reamer thing which of course I need. Still no worries. An extra few bucks for an item I don’t have and will use. I’m good. Until we get the the “natural foods” section at Kroger. And what do we find? Lara Bars! So many Lara Bars in all sorts of flavors! We typically buy a pack at Costco but to be honest Apple Pie and Cherry Pie get old after a while and we rarely scout out places for different flavors so like children in a candy shop we start picking out what sounds good! Then we say we’ll just get two of everything that doesn’t have peanuts and we’re good. So we had 10 flavors, 2 of each kind, at $1.49 a pop. We just wanted to throw our money away didn’t we?

Lara Bar Christmas

By the end of our shopping excursion I was done. I was tired, I was in pain and I was ready for bed. So no yummy goodness to report on. Hopefully I’ll make some time tonight but one of my kiddos has an orchestra concert tonight and another one has a concert tomorrow night so I’m not making any promises!

One more thing speaking of kids. They are definitely all jumping on the Paleo ship. Lunches have become exciting as we are wanting to get creative. All 3 boys really seem to want to be inventive. Yesterday Justice (10 yr old) took apple sliders. He said they were awesome and can’t wait for me to buy the “green” apples because he thinks they will be much better! It’s a proud momma moment when your kids are stoked about doing right for their body. 🙂

Paleo Cake Ball FAIL and other fun stuff

Before I get to CAKE BALL FAIL… I’ll discuss my workout this morning… then I’ll move on to last nights cookin’!

It was a windchill of 21° this morning as I drove to bootcamp. Thank goodness we have an indoor option! Although we did have a run that included being in the FREEZING COLD – not fun. Come on now, we’re in TEXAS! I’m not made for the cold! As always boxing is my favorite part of the Tuesday workout. We’re always mixing it up and I feel like I’m getting quicker every week. AJ makes sure to keep me on my toes! In addition to boxing we did a 20 minute AMRAP if you will. There were 8 movments where we had to do 25-50 reps of something and then run with a 20 minute time limit. (pushups, bicep curls, alligator plank, burpees, jack knife dead lifts, star jumps, up/down plank, run) I got through 1 round and 4 movements into the second round! Woohoo. I felt good today. I suppose I got some good sleep 🙂

Now for last night…..So my Paleo Cake Balls were an epic FAIL, my kids including myself were sure we would never erase the taste from our mouths. When you get too much unsweetened chocolate in one large ball it’s pretty disgusting! Although they came out just as pretty looking as any NON PALEO cake balls I have ever made. There will be a round 2, I promise, I just have to find a “good” PALEO frosting to mix with my cake crumbles.

Cake Balls lookin pretty .... TASTE HORRIBLE!

So now that’s off my chest and I admitted my failure, lets move on to the goodness that did pan out last night. PALEO PUMPKIN CREAM CHEESE which I took from PaleoOMG blog http://paleohmygoodness.blogspot.com/2011/10/paleo-pumpkin-cream-chicken-casserole.html

It turned out quite tasty and the family seemed to agree. I feel that I liked it best since I scarfed it down or maybe I was just that hungry.

Paleo Pumpkin Cream Chicken Casserole

Paleo Pumpkin Cream Chicken Casserole Served!

What you need:
1-1.5 lbs chicken breasts, chopped into 1 inch cubes
1 medium sized spaghetti squash cooked and shredded
1 head cauliflower, chopped
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 can canned coconut milk
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
salt and pepper, to taste

What you do:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Time to roast our veggggggies! Chop your cauliflower and put it in a baking dish topped with a little bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. Then cut your spaghetti squash in half, use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and extra threads, place face down on a baking pan. Add the cauliflower and spaghetti squash to the oven, side by side if possible, to roast for around 25 minutes. (Depending how big your spaghetti squash is, the cauliflower made roast a little quicker, but mine cooked at the same time) You will know your spaghetti squash is cooked when you can poke the outside skin and it gives a bit.

While the squash and cauliflower are cooking, it’s time to cook up your chicken. Pull out either a LARGE saucepan or a large pot and put under medium-high heat.

Add olive oil to it along with your minced garlic. Once the garlic begins to smell, add your chopped onions and cook until translucent.

Add your chopped chicken to the cooking onions, cover and let steam for around 5 minutes.
Once the chicken is about 2/3 cooked through, add your can of pumpkin, half can of coconut milk, and spices directly to the pan. Mix thoroughly. Taste to see if you need any more spices or salt.

Once your squash and cauliflower is done cooking, and chicken saucey mixture is heated up, de-thread spaghetti squash with a fork, running the fork the opposite way of the threads.

Add your spaghetti squash threads, roasted cauliflower, and chicken saucey mixture to a 9×11 glass baking dish and add dish to the oven under the broiler. Cook for about 5 minutes, getting a little dark on the top.

Remove from oven and let sit for around 10 minutes to help the sauce thicken up. Then EAT! It’s good stuff and rather easy to make.

AFTER I had cleaned up dishes and had my cake ball disaster I decided I would get a jump start on tonight’s prepping and got zucchini all sliced up to cook as my “spaghetti”. It’s just prepped and in the fridge for now

But post prep I had some zucchini ideas, ran it past the kiddos and they were on board so we made tiny zucchini sandwiches! This was quickly packed away into containers for their lunches. They were very excited about them and tried out a couple. There’s one for the WIN column. I hope they enjoy them today at lunch. MY 8 year old says the kids at school think what he eats at lunch is GROSS! Then he procedes to tell me “they have no idea what GOOD food is… raspberries are awesome and my sandwiches are going to be good today! They all eat chips and crackers, and sugar stuff. That’s stuff isn’t good for you” He’s a good kid that Jakob. 🙂

So I’ll leave you with a pic of our little zucchini sandwiches. They have all natural, minimally processed, nitrate free ham, carrot slice and of course zucchini. Have a great Tuesday!

Zucchini Sandwiches for Kids Lunch